Jing Su, a Pur­due Kran­nert grad­u­ate and for­mer assis­tant at the Con­fu­cius Insti­tute was one of the Schwarz­man Schol­ars for the class of 2017 to 2018 at Tsinghua Uni­ver­sity. See Pur­due news release here. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Jing!

From Nov. 9 to Nov 10, invited by CI at Pur­due Uni­ver­sity, Prof. Zuyan Chen and Prof. Hong Zhang gave talks on Con­fu­cian­ism in Indi­anapo­lis and Pur­due, attended by stu­dents, fac­ulty and high school Chi­nese teach­ers from Greater Lafayette area and Val­paraiso University.

Speak­ing on “Suc­ceed­ing with Con­fu­cian­ism”, Prof Chen pointed out that Con­fu­cian­ism, as an ancient thought and phi­los­o­phy rather than a reli­gion, as most may have per­ceived, has guided the ways Chi­nese define “suc­cess”. Con­fu­cian­ism value has been behind the per­ceived suc­cess­ful life: higher aca­d­e­mic per­for­mance of East-​Asian stu­dents, bet­ter test results of stu­dent groups taught in Chi­nese teach­ing style than those taught in Eng­lish style, 99% col­lege admis­sion rate in Heng Shui High School and Jack Ma’s Alibaba story. Prof. Chen’s dis­cussed his inter­pre­ta­tion and trans­la­tion of selected Con­fu­cian Analects with the exam­ple “学而时习之” was tra­di­tion­ally inter­preted as a kind of learn­ing habit “study and review from time to time”. Accord­ing to Chen, what was meant from the Analects “prac­tice what has been learned at due times” may reflect the essence of this par­tic­u­lar quote.

Prof. Hong Zhang is a pro­fes­sion­ally trained soprano who ini­ti­ated the teach­ing Chi­nese through songs in the US. Start­ing with sim­i­lar­i­ties between singing and pro­nun­ci­a­tion, Prof Zhang empha­sizes the tech­niques of singing may well help the learn­ers’ cor­rect pronunciation.

Her inno­v­a­tive work­shop and the unique hands-​on style attracted teach­ers and stu­dents from CIs in Indi­ana. A school teacher from Illi­nois drove 90 min­utes to attend this event.

Direc­tors of all CIs were pleased to share resources and exchange ideas at regional gath­er­ings, and agreed that this kind of mean­ing­ful and effec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion should be continued.

On April 13, our annual China Night event was suc­cess­fully held at Sun­ny­side Inter­me­di­ate School in Lafayette, attract­ing over 500 peo­ple from the local com­mu­nity. This large scale cul­tural event has been held every year since 2008 and has become an impor­tant activ­ity for local res­i­dents. Spon­sored by Lafayette School Cor­po­ra­tion, the Office of Engage­ment at Pur­due and the Con­fu­cius Insti­tute, this event was a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Pur­due Chi­nese Stu­dents and Schol­ars Asso­ci­a­tion, local com­mu­nity and K-​12 fac­ulty and admin­is­tra­tors. Games, foods, music and dances packed the hall with excite­ment and enthusiasm.

On Sept 23, to cel­e­brate the Con­fu­cius Day, Pur­due Con­vo­ca­tions with co-​sponsorship from CIP invited Shang­hai Jingju com­pany to present [Ham­let] for the first time in the US (Pur­due Uni­ver­sity and Har­ris The­ater in Chicago). Inter­ac­tions between the artists and stu­dents included class­room demo on Jingju, its his­tory, masks, music and instru­ments; cos­tume design and mate­ri­als. Inspired by Shake­spearean clas­sics [Ham­let], “the Revenge of the Prince” is per­formed in Jingju, or Bei­jing Opera, a clas­sic com­bi­na­tion of West­ern and Chi­nese art pre­sen­ta­tions. CIP has always believed in pro­mot­ing Chi­nese lan­guage and cul­ture to the gen­eral pub­lic and com­mits to bridg­ing US and China friend­ship. This event was widely cov­ered by local and Chi­nese media.

From May 11 to 25, CIP orga­nized and co-​taught the 11th Maymester course to China. As a name brand of CIP study abroad course, stu­dents vis­ited Hong Kong Uni­ver­sity of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy, Ningbo Uni­ver­sity and Shang­hai Jiao­tong Uni­ver­sity, and worked one-​to-​one with Chi­nese stu­dents to learn from each other on their cul­ture and Chi­nese lan­guage.From per­for­mances, cul­tural excur­sions and cam­pus vis­its, stu­dents bond quickly with­out bor­ders and expe­ri­ences great friend­ship and hos­pi­tal­ity from our host insti­tu­tions. Upon enter­ing China, the immer­sion helps stu­dents under­stand the impact of study­ing abroad and thus expand their hori­zon globally.